FF7 - Lords Of Weakness
by Astarte
Summary: In introspective from Rufus Shinra's Point of View


**Lords of Weakness**

By Astarte

My Father was weak. He always had been. Its rather odd, considering the fact that he was such a powerful man but it is something that you must know if you are going to try and understand him. He had this peculiar desire to be loved and admired. He was not satisfied to enjoy the grudging respect of Midgar's more influential citizens, no, he had to have the adoration of the unwashed as well. Why he cared what the filthy rats dwelling in the slums thought of him is an ongoing mystery for me. I certainly could care less. They are resources to be used and discarded. Yet Father was desperate to have the cattle adore him. He often went to great lengths to put himself into the position of saviour and protector.

That is why he was so weak.

Still, the irony of it all has never ceased to amuse me. This is the same person who ordered entire villages slaughtered at the slightest hint of dissidence. He's the man who authorized all sorts of horrific little experiments just to keep his pet researcher happy and content. So cruel, so callous, yet he still yearned for the adoration of the ignorant, the stupid and the gullible. Perhaps he felt at home in their company. I simply cannot say what fascination they held for him. Not that that the glitterati hold much more appeal, they simply smell nicer.

Father almost -- but not quite -- earned my grudging respect when he dropped the Sector 7 plate to eliminate a pathetic group of rebels. It was a masterful display of power, an act sure to inspire terror in the hearts of anyone who heard of it. Devastation on a huge scale simply to ensure the demise of an irritant; it was immeasurably impressive. My Father squandered the opportunity.

Fear is power. Whoever is most feared has the most power. Father succumbed to that irrational desire to be loved and framed a worthless rebel group for the act so that he could become heroic for the masses. He gave Avalanche a presence in the public's mind, giving them power and influence that he should have kept for himself. He made himself appear reactive instead of proactive; he became weak in the face of their apparent strength.

If he had been strong enough to carry through with his actions, he would have turned it into a grand demonstration of the consequences of defiance. He should have been willing to let the threat be a public one. Instead, Father handed that enormous potential over to a group apparently populated by serfs, traitors and trollops. It is not an act I would be interested in duplicating, simply one that I would have had the guts to do correctly. He failed because he was too weak to let people see him as he truly was. He wanted to be loved even as he slaughtered and stole.

I have no desire to be adored by people I neither know nor care about. I have no interest in being admired by the social climbing leeches that call themselves the elite, either. I only respect the men and women that make up my Turks. They are everything that Father's sniveling sycophants are not: professional, intelligent and dangerous. They are the sharks among the minnows. They are the wolves among the sheep. I feel at home around them.

Father died because he was a weak fool, someone who spent too much time worrying about the opinions of the insignificant. He was a man too infatuated with the mundane to pay attention to the significant. I knew that something was going to happen. So did the Turks. What the details were, we did not know but we were all bright enough to keep away from the office until the news came: Father was dead.

Murdered by Sephiroth.

I should be angry, after all, he was my father and blood is thicker than water. On the other hand, water can be a precious commodity while blood... Sometimes blood just gets in the way; stays around too long after its time is over; holds others back and stagnates. I don't regret my father's death. Sephiroth did me a favour. Old ShinRa was no longer a benefit to the company and I had already decided to do something about it. Sephiroth just saved me the trouble.

Now the old SOLDIER is out there somewhere and so is Avalanche. Father would have dramatically divided our resources, devoting entirely too much energy on a haphazard group of losers. I've sent my Turks to push them in the right direction and like the idiots they are, they've been only too happy to comply. Its freed up ShinRa resources for the things that really matter: Sephiroth and the Promised Land. Danger and Wealth. I don't have the time to waste on inconveniences. If I play my hand correctly, I can even manipulate those fools into helping the company.

Efficient management of resources: that is what a good Chief Executive Officer is supposed to do. I live for the company. I live for ShinRa. That, at least, is something I respected in Father. He devoted his life to ShinRa and worked very hard at elevating it into something magnificent. so will I. I will make this company the single greatest monopoly in the history of the planet.

Father's legacy was in the transformation of the company from a weapons manufacturer to a global energy company. He rescued it from an industry that was stagnating after the war and gave it a new direction. Father single-handedly saved ShinRa Corporation. I will always admire that. No matter what else I may think of him, he will always have that shining star to his credit.

However, my dreams have grown larger. My legacy will be to make it a global fact of life for every man, woman and child on the Planet. Father was satisfied to be a CEO and the president of a company. I will be satisfied with nothing less than the presidency of the entire globe. One day, children will look at my portrait and see the planet's first world leader. 

I will have earned my place in history for all time. I will be the success that my Father never even dared to imagine. I will be feared and respected. What need will I have of love when I am the penultimate power? None. That was Father's fatal error.

I am Rufus ShinRa, future lord of all the world. Let no one say that I am without ambition.

fin.


End file.
